


chocolate and peanuts

by sadlikeknives



Category: Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Courting Rituals, M&Ms, M/M, So Many M&Ms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-26 05:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17739518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: That time Robert stuffed Thomas's mattress with M&Ms.





	chocolate and peanuts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/gifts).



There were as many kinds of shapeshifter courtship rituals as there were kinds of shapeshifter, and then some, but they boiled down into two basic phases: declarations of interest and declarations of intent. Robert would later hear his stunt with the M&Ms described as 'trying to get Thomas's attention' and not correct the speaker, because they weren't a rat and didn't know their customs very well, but the truth was that it was Thomas who had gotten Robert's attention a few months before, with a beautifully executed cheese plate left on his kitchen counter about half an hour before he arrived home from an exhausting day at the office. That was how you declared interest, at least among the rats: with a gesture you could come back from, something you didn't pour your whole heart and bank account into, only to risk being shattered on a refusal. Some of the other clans went at it full throttle, brakes cut, doing things just to get a prospective partner's attention that frankly appalled the rats, for whom, before property damage got involved, you had to be _sure_.

The first time they slept together, in the afterglow, Robert had made some laughing comment about how lumpy Thomas's mattress was, and Thomas said, apologetic, "I know," and then offered Robert a peanut M&M from the packet he was eating from. The offer of food was, in and of itself, a giant step—the eye contact they made as Robert accepted said M&M was _electric_ —and Robert knew then that he was going to keep this man for the rest of his life, if he had any say in the matter, and how he was going to express that.

First, he bought upholstery tools, and then he started buying M&Ms. Chocolate, even relatively cheap chocolate, was expensive and scarce in post-Shift Atlanta, and it took a while for him to stock up enough, long enough for him to thoroughly ruin his mattress on test runs and have to buy a new one of those, too. When he finally had amassed enough candy, a hoard any wererat would be proud of, he just had to wait for the time to be right to make his move. He didn't need that much time, really, just several hours uninterrupted, but fate delivered whole days right into his hands.

Thomas wasn't your classic wererat, was the thing. He was built big, like all the men in his mother's family, and Robert fucking loved it, loved his height, his shoulders, loved how strong he was, but it meant that as far as the typical wererat things like agility and sliding into tight spaces, Thomas was and would always be at a disadvantage—even his animal form was big and bulky. It was one of the main reasons everyone agreed that Robert was the one who might be alpha-rat one day, not him, and Thomas was self-conscious about his size, even as it meant their alpha could offer him up for jobs that wouldn't typically have fallen to the rat clan, meant a little extra status and visibility, a little awareness they weren't just good for sneaking. It meant that sometimes he ended up with guard or escort duty, as in this case, when he was sent to Kentucky to meet a group of shapeshifters coming from the midwest to join the Pack.

On the morning of the last day before the group was expected back, Robert let himself into Thomas's house with the key, which was practically cheating at earlier phases of the game but _de rigeur_ for this point among most of the clans: one did not, in effect, propose marriage to someone who hadn't welcomed you into their home. He stripped the bed and meticulously picked things apart until he could access the whole interior of Thomas's king-sized mattress, and then he pulled out the stuffing until only the springs remained, removing it to garbage bags. Then it was trip after trip after trip to his car, swapping garbage bags of mattress stuffing with garbage bags of packages of M&Ms, the latter of which got dumped into the mattress cavity. When he was done, there was so little candy left of his stash that he dumped the rest of in, too. The mattress could be a little overstuffed. It was fine. Sewing it up so it wasn't an obvious hack job was honestly the trickiest part, but he managed it, then flung himself down in the pile of sheets and rolled around in them, so they'd obviously smell like him, before he made the bed back up. Then he let himself back out, locking the door behind him, dropped the mattress stuffing and empty trash bags that had previously held M&Ms in somebody's dumpster a few blocks away, and headed for the Keep and his actual job.

There was nothing left to do but wait after that, and that was the hardest part.

Thomas's party arrived back in Atlanta slightly behind schedule, late the following afternoon, and where Robert would normally have gone over to his place to greet him home, or invited him to his, he held back, spending the evening a vibrating bundle of nerves, stress-eating his way through most of the snacks he had in his house.

It was quite late, late enough that he really should have been in bed already, when a knock sounded at his door and he opened it without even checking first to find Thomas standing there, arms folded, a packet of peanut M&Ms dangling from the fingers of his right hand, a smile already twitching at the corners of his mouth. "You know," he said before Robert could say anything, "I couldn't figure out what the fuck you _did_ at first. And then I tried actually laying down on the bed."

"I don't know what to tell you," Robert found himself saying. "Your mattress was lumpy as hell to start with."

"Yes," Thomas agreed, "but it didn't _crinkle_."

"I think I improved it," Robert said, feeling the corners of his own mouth tugging up in response to the smile Thomas was fighting.

"Where am I supposed to sleep now, Rob?" Thomas asked, already leaning forward and openly grinning.

Robert moved to meet him and said against his mouth, "Guess."

Later, as they lay on Robert's new, incredibly comfortable mattress, Thomas asked, sounding delighted, "Is that what happened to your old mattress? Did you fuck it up trying to figure out how to get into mine?"

"I _super_ fucked it up," Robert confirmed. Thomas unthinkingly tried to pass him the open bag of M&Ms, but he declined. A courtship gift was not to be taken back: that whole hoard was Thomas's, and Thomas's alone. Even accounting for the way wererats ate and the way Thomas loved chocolate, it should last him a while.

"How many M&Ms does it take to fill a king size mattress?" Thomas asked, as if following Robert's line of thought.

Robert had done intense amounts of math to work out the exact answer to that question. The short answer was, "A lot."

"I'll cook you dinner tomorrow," Thomas declared.

"Good. Then we can move all your stuff into my house."

"Obviously, since no one will ever be sleeping on my mattress again."

"I told you. I think I improved it."

Thomas rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at Robert. "You know you could have just left a truffle on my pillow or something, right?"

"No," Robert said, loving the way his face went soft. "No, I really couldn't have."

"I would have said yes."

"I know. That's why I couldn't have." Thomas leaned down to kiss him, his mouth tasting like chocolate and peanuts, and Robert thought fiercely, _Mine_.


End file.
